History of the routes in QdQwav
-------------------------------

The text file that comes with this release lists the people that took part
in its production. But in fact, this makes the credits far from complete.
Almost no speed-runner can claim full credit for any given level because
every demo builds upon the routes and the experiences won by those who went
before him. And so, this summary tries to trace how the routes that we used
in QdQwav came to be, who invented which trick and so on. It is a lengthy
read, but it gives a lot of background information for every level, and it
may give the uninitiated an idea of just how much thought and discussion -
in addition to the more obvious playing skills - went into the creation of
these demos.

Quake speed-running occurs at two places: at SDA, where from-scratch runs
of single levels are accepted, and at QdQ, where teams of multiple people
produce whole game runs by stringing together the best demos. Tricks invented
for from-scratch demos are only mentioned if they were relevant for QdQ runs.
Also, tricks that were invented in Easy skill demos are only mentioned if they
were later used in Nightmare demos.

The QdQ team made three runs through Quake on Nightmare. QdQ's founding was
sparked when Yonatan Donner made the first QdQ-style run through episode 1 in
a time of 4:44. After that, the team of Anthony Bailey, Matthias Belz, Yonatan
Donner, and Nolan Pflug set out to create such a run through the whole game.
Quake done Quick (QdQ) was released on 10th June 1997 in a time of 19:49.

This first run created a fair bit of publicity, and consequently a larger team
of runners gathered to improve upon this first attempt. Only a few months later,
on 13th September 1997, Quake done Quicker (QdQr) was completed in a time of
16:35.

After that, the QdQ crew turned to other projects, but from time to time
new tricks were discovered, and completely new running techniques like bunny-
hopping came to fruition. Thus it came that QdQr slowly but steadily ceased to
represent the state-of-the-art. In May 1999 Ingmar Poerner assembled a team to
produce a completely new run, and so work on Quake done Quick with a Vengeance
(QdQwav) was begun.

QdQwav took a lot longer to make than the previous demos; the tricks were
very much harder, and other commitments caused further delays to the project.
It is on the 13th September 2000, on the third anniversary of its predecessor,
Quake done Quicker, that we finally, and proudly, release the new run. QdQwav
finishes Quake in only 12:23, that is, more than 25% faster than QdQr. This
document traces how we arrived at this improvement.

In the following paragraphs a short history of each level is given. Also,
we list the times for these levels in QdQ, QdQr and QdQwav so that you can
see where we saved all that time.

Disclaimer: Most of this text was written months and even years after the
tricks were invented, and some of the information contained herein is bound
to be inaccurate. If you were involved in the creation of some route and you
feel that you haven't been given the credit you deserve, please tell us so
we can correct the information.


e1m1 - The Slipgate Complex             0:30 / 0:30 / 0:26

The first time recorded in the annals for this level is :34 (Matthias)
but it was quickly reduced to :30 by Yonatan. This demo was one of the
few runs that didn't change between the original QdQ run and QdQr.
Gunnar first performed the jump from the third button across the slime
and brought the time to :29, the only route change ever. Later on,
increasing bunny-hopping skills gradually reduced the time to :26 (Ilkka).


e1m2 - Castle of the Damned             0:38 / 0:38 / 0:33

The first time was :42, later reduced to :38 with better running (Yonatan).
The latter demo was used in both QdQ and QdQr. Skipping the super shotgun
saved two seconds (Gunnar), bunnies another one (Ilkka). Until then, run-
ners had used the plain route from the key to the door. However, Ilkka
found that one could save two seconds by bunnying directly to the key and
taking the teleporter to the green armor. The green armor also helps us
survive those grenade jumps in e1m3. Ilkka first achieved :33, but in QdQwav
we use a demo by Sergi which gives us more armor for the next levels.

Note: We have a faster demo for this level (:32 by Sergi), but it skips the
armor again and is therefore not compatible with the demos on the next levels.


e1m3 - The Necropolis                   0:43 / 0:35 / 0:24

This is one of the most prestigious levels in Quake, due to the spectacular
(and difficult) tricks. The plain "natural" route, first performed by
Matthias, yielded a time of 1:12. Matthias also discovered the grenade
jump in the sewers.

Later on, Yonatan discovered two tricks: The first grenade jump which
uses a slope to get from the gold key up to the walkway, and the use
of the fiend as a door-stopper (0:43). Combining all three tricks seemed
to be too hard at that time.

When QdQr was in production, the QdQ crew held a contest on this level,
Skillz Test #4. Many interesting demos were recorded, and Perkele won
in a time of :35. Apart from the flawless play, he added two details
to the route: His way of placing the grenade exposed the principle that
grenades always get stuck when you throw them downwards on a slope, and
he added the trick of bouncing the second grenade against a wall to
make the jump earlier.

After QdQr's release, Yonatan recorded :34 in a from-scratch demo (Perkele
had to spend a second to get health because he had to start with only 50).
Will gradually drove the time down to :29 with several tricks: bunnies,
throwing the first grenade earlier, and getting perfect co-operation from
the fiend, but then it was Yonatan who snatched the record back for a while
- the :28 was the last speed-run he did before retiring.

In the late stages of QdQwav, Markus first got :27 with better bunnies
and then modified two of the tricks: The jump in the sewers was achieved by
bouncing a grenade into the ogre (which allows you to go at full horizontal
speed for a while). The trick with the fiend probably deserves detailed
explanation: When the fiend first sees the player, we take a step backwards.
The fiend starts moving and, since we stepped back, moves towards the lift.
He is then in a perfect position to block the bars once we enter the lift
room. Markus achieved :24 with this route.


e1m4 - The Grisly Grotto                0:28 / 0:20 / 0:13

In this level the episode route and the from-scratch route are different.
In QdQ we used a grenade jump to get the silver key from the bridge, then
proceeded to the tower (suggested by Anthony, 0:28 demo by Yonatan). For
QdQr, we skipped the key and used a different trick: a grenade jump in
conjunction with the upward speed from a slope was barely sufficient to
get to the top of the bridge (0:20).

When QdQlite, the Easy skill equivalent of QdQr, was made, Ville threw
the grenade earlier so that he could jump right after getting out of
the water. Ingmar duplicated this trick in Nightmare, gradually improving
the time to :14. In the end, Markus snatched the level with a :13.


e1m5 - Gloom Keep                       0:22 / 0:16 / 0:14

The basic route on this level, invented by Nolan and Anthony, used to be
the same in all three runs, but some details changed. In QdQ, Yonatan
killed the knight first, then performed a grenade jump to the RL and a
rocketjump to the top level. Since the jumps took more than 94 health,
he had to take some extra health to survive the final drop to the exit.

In QdQr, Yonatan and Simon had a fight over this level. Yonatan improved
his time to :19 with better running, and Simon reached :18 by grenade-
jumping off the fiend. Yonatan improved this to :17, and Simon equalled
the time, proving that the jumps could be made with only 94 health.
Yonatan finally decided the struggle with a :16.

Ingmar added bunnies and got :15. Sergi improved the time to :14; the extra
protection of the green armor left over from e1m2 allowed him to do faster
jumps with more than 94 health-loss. Sergi also added the slope jump at the
staircase.


e1m6 - The Door to Chthon               0:12 / 0:11 / 0:09

The most important aspect of this level is that we need as much health
as possible for e1m7. Often it was worth sacrificing a second here to make
more rocketjumps in the next level. Yonatan ran the level in both QdQ and
QdQr using the rocketjump invented by Matthias. Later, it became known that
the rocket jump to the key could be replaced by a bunny (Gerald), and Ilkka
was the first to implement this in an Easy run. Janne first made a :10 for
the QdQwav project which Markus improved to :09.


e1m7 - The House of Chthon              0:31 / 0:27 / 0:20

The number and strength (hence speed) of the rocketjumps one can perform
on this level depends on the health one has at the start. The time in QdQ
was :31. Nolan and Stefan suggested to perform the first rocketjump right
after picking up the rune (previously we went back and to the right before
doing this). Yonatan added the jump from the zap button to the higher ledge
on the side which gave him :28, BurninSun improved the time to :27. Gerald
had the idea of adding a rocket-push down the chute. Janne improved the time
to :24. Finally, Markus turned the route upside-down: Instead of using rocket-
pushes to jump over Chthon, he used them to get from the zap-button back to
the left button and used the resulting speed for bunnies over Chthon. This
works because Chthon's bounding box allows you to slide on top of him.


e2m1 - The Installation                 0:10 / 0:10 / 0:07

The simplest route of all speed-runs. Nolan first recorded an :11, Matthias
improved this to :10. This demo was used in both QdQ and QdQr. We then thought
that the time could not be improved any more. Wrong! :-) BurninSun first got
:09 on Easy by using wallhugging, Carl Lloyd-Parker duplicated this feat on
Nightmare with zigzagging. Later, Ilkka did the impossible (:08) with
bunnies, and Markus (Easy) and Attila (Nightmare) accomplished the utterly
impossible (:07).


e2m2 - The Ogre Citadel                 1:00 / 0:51 / 0:38

The map's relatively open design allows for great variety of routes, but there
are some "side constraints" that need to be considered.

First of all, we need the grenade launcher from the water for e2m3. This costs
a few seconds and for a long time meant that from-scratch routes and episode
routes were different. Then there are two ways to the exit: Via the gold key
door, or through the water (near the secret megahealth/zombie area). The latter
route usually takes more time because of the slow movement in water. Finally,
there's a moving platform after the gold key door which is down initially. It's
raised by the button near the window overlooking this area. It also starts
rising when you approach the area.

The first route through this level involved no spectacular tricks; enter the
citadel, run over the button that starts the lift in the water, get quad and
key, then proceed to the grenade launcher which we need in e2m3 and go to the
exit. Mark Turner first ran this route in a time of 1:03; Nolan improved this
to 1:00 for QdQ.

In QdQr some other routes were considered. Nolan used a grenade-jump from water
up to the window behind the gold key and got :58. But in the end we settled
with just running the old route faster - Yonatan managed :51.

On Easy skill, Gunnar invented an ogre-grenade jump to get to the upper level.
But this meant leaving out the button that raised the platform, so he had to
wait a few seconds for it to rise. Peter devised a fiendpush to eliminate the
wait.

When we recorded QdQwav, multiple routes were tried again. Will used a slight
modification of the old route and got :49. Ingmar suggested a different route
altogether: From the start, get the megahealth secret, then proceed through
water to the grenade launcher. The shambler guarding the key is used for a
grenade jump to the switch on the upper level. After the gold key door, two
grenade jumps from the fiend and from a zombie completed the route. Justin
eventually got :45 with this route, but it turned out that we were getting
too few rockets for the other maps.

But then Peter came up with a very fast route that solved all our problems:
Following an idea by Attila, he made an ingenious long jump from the bridge
to the window behind the key, added another difficult grenade-jump near the
end and got :38. This route even has the added advantage of getting the
yellow armor, a great help for the next level.


e2m3 - The Crypt of Decay               0:44 / 0:27 / 0:18

Matthias discovered the main feature of the route on this map, the grenade jump
to the upper floor. One hell-knight needs to be killed to open the route to the
exit, but there are many more large monsters blocking the way. We had to take
our time to kill them in the first attempt (:44, Yonatan).

Stefan suggested the grenade-jump from the ogre to eliminate the wait for the
extending bridge. Then Perkele amazed the hell out of everyone with his :27
- everyone had thought that it was impossible to squeeze past all those enemies
near the exit.

For QdQwav, Peter had the idea of making the grenade jump from the zombie.
Ingmar implemented this to get :21. Alexander found a way to squeeze past an
ogre. The idea of using a grenade boost for increased speed after the lift was
by Peter who first used it in an Easy run. With these tricks Alex managed to
get the time down to :18.


e2m4 - The Ebon Fortress                1:31 / 0:55 / 0:51

This map, along with e2m5, is the most difficult in the whole game. There are
many possible strategies - the only thing that is certain is that you have to
get the silver key and from there to the exit. Moreover, e2m4 and e2m5 are
deeply interwoven; the health and armor one has from e2m4 has a great influence
on what you can achieve in e2m5. Also, it matters whether or not the RL in e2m4
is taken.

In QdQ we wanted to have lots of red armor for e2m5. Therefore a rather cau-
tious route was chosen, invented by Nolan. At the start, collect SNG and yellow
armor from the secret, then go to the rocket launcher room, perform a jump to
the upper level and on to the acid area. Collect silver key, red armor, Quad,
and head back. In the room after the silver key door walk up the stairs and
kill the shambler with quadded nails. The Quad runs out just as one descends
the lift which allows another rocketjump to the top of the bars, making you
unreachable for the monsters while you shoot the switches. (Legend has it that
this trick was discovered by Nolan through accident.) Yonatan managed to get
1:31 in this way.

For QdQr we first tried to improve the old route, and Yonatan got 1:25.
But when it turned out that e2m5 could be done from minimal starting stats
with a new route, the strategy for e2m4 was altered drastically. Anthony
suggested a grenade jump up to the ogre balcony at the start and to collect
the pentagram. From there, two different routes were possible. Jeff went on
to collect the rocket launcher, then to the silver key, collecting the Quad,
and back. The RL/pent/quad combination allowed him to use quite a few pushes
and jumps, among them a quadded rocketjump to the top of the staircase room.
However, pent ran out before quad, so he couldn't make the rocketjump up onto
the bars that block the exit and had to wait for them to lower. His best time
was 1:02.

Perkele used a different route. He approached the acid lake from the other
side and left out the rocket launcher. His initial time was 1:06, but it
transpired that the route could be faster than Jeff's with some alterations.
Yonatan had the idea of throwing a grenade towards the Quad which would
throw you back after getting that item. Nolan suggested to replace the
rocketjump in the staircase room with a grenade jump off an ogre. But it
was expected that Perkele would run into the same problem as Jeff: Quadded,
but unprotected, there was no way to survive the final rocketjump onto the
exit barrier. Perkele came up with a brilliant solution: He jumped when
leaving the lift, and an attacking fiend pushed him onto the bars. This was
the first use of a non-explosive damage boost in a QdQ demo. The time for
this map in QdQr was :55.

When we recorded QdQlite, the Easy skill equivalent of QdQr, we noticed that
having the green armor at the silver key would be sufficient to survive the
bar block in the next level, and that having the rocket launcher would help
us save time there, too. Chris came up with a modification of Jeff's route
which is still the standard route today: Ignore all goodies at the start and
go straight to the rocket launcher, take a rocketjump to the upper level,
proceed to the silver key and back. Once one has the green armor near the key
one can trade rocket jumps in e2m4 against time saved in e2m5. Chris' route
turned out to be even faster than Perkele's route, with Gerald and Justin
bringing the time to :52 (:53 demo used in QdQlite).

In QdQwav we also reckoned that Chris' route was the best with respect to e2m5.
On Nightmare skill, it does not exemt us from taking the red armor in e2m5,
but having the rocket launcher and at least some green armor is an advantage
at the start of that level. Apart from this, we were able to run this route
faster than Perkele's. Kimmo first beat Perkele's time with a :54. He invented
the curl jump around the bars at the silver key (which saves one rocketjump),
and he also found an elegant method of dodging the shambler's lightning.
Markus later improved the time to :51.


e2m5 - The Wizard's Manse               1:07 / 0:49 / 0:38

As already mentioned this level is very interdependent with e2m4. Two actions
are necessary to exit: One needs the gold key, and one needs to press the button
inside the cage lift to remove some bars that block the gold key door.

In QdQr we started this level with lots of red armor from e2m4. The route
(again invented by Nolan and performed by Yonatan) was like this: Leave
out the rocketjump at the start, but once inside the manse perform two
rocketjumps to reach the cage. Press the button, and ride the cage all
the way underwater, then go up the stairs towards the exit. We still
needed the gold key, however, so we took the underwater Quad and ran up
the stairs to the ledge where it's on, then proceeded to the exit. This
resulted in a time of 1:07.

At this time, a different route was already known. Some time before the
release of QdQ, John Romero had held a contest on this map where he
challenged people to beat his Easy skill run of 1:02. Several people
found out independently that it was possible to skip the long and boring
cage ride - after pressing the switch that starts the lift one can block
the door (at the expense of 120 damage points) and get back out.

The winning route looked like this: Collect the rocket launcher, rocketjump
up, collect the green armor, perform two rocketjumps to the cage, press the
button, get out, another rocketjump to the gold key, and exit. The winning
time was :40 by someone named Plok. Running this route on Nightmare proved
to be a tough, even frustrating task but Yonatan finally managed a :49. He
spent some time to get the red armor which was needed to survive the hordes
of enemies.

After QdQr, some modifications to Plok's route were achieved in Easy skill
runs. In the room after the cage, Gunnar found a quicker route to the key
which involved rocketjumping over the half-barrier. Ilkka made the rocket-
jump earlier and used the half-barrier as a stepping stone. This trick was
also used in Markus' QdQwav demo (:38). Apart from this, the speed-up was
achieved by bunny-hopping and much faster play at the red armor.


e2m6 - The Dismal Oubliette             1:29 / 1:22 / 1:19

This is the longest run in the whole game, but not because the level is
complicated - approximately one minute is spent waiting in the descending
lift. Yonatan thought of telefragging both shamblers, Anthony of rocket-
jumping to the rune (one could leave the level without the rune, but then
you couldn't finish the whole game of Quake).

In QdQr some details were changed to optimize the time: A faster start,
ignoring the second vore, doing a grenade+rocket jump into the rune box,
and another rocketjump out (1:22 by Fredrik).

Nolan and Evan found ways to avoid teleporting monsters and the nailtrap by
standing on the ledge on the side of the lift. Peter devised a masterful way
of killing the vore which he first used in an Easy run. Using these tricks,
and a slightly modified start, Ingmar achieved 1:19.


e3m1 - Termination Central              0:48 / 0:46 / 0:25

The first time on this level was 1:00 by Matthias using the natural route.
Matthias and Anthony then discovered that one could use some explosive boxes
to get to the gold key faster (0:48 by Yonatan). For QdQr this route was
improved to :46. During QdQlite Jan found a better way of doing the
explosives jump which prompted Yonatan to improve the time to :43 (the
first improvement to QdQr). Will got the time down to :42.

Sometime later, Ilkka invented today's route: A slope-jump with a
180-degree turn and assistance from a grunt (both first-of-their-kind
tricks) provided a huge shortcut and gave him a time of :31. Ilkka later
proved that was possible to make the jump even without assistance. Attila
left out the green armor at the start. Ilkka and then Markus squeezed the
last seconds from the run to get :25.


e3m2 - The Vaults of Zin                0:57 / 0:53 / 0:20

Matthias first did the level in 1:14. Yonatan left out some items and got
:57 for QdQ. The most notable shortcut was a grenade jump onto the button
in the lava pool. In QdQr, two grenade jumps from monsters were added to
reach :53. The grenadejump was replaced by an ogre-grenadejump (Gunnar) and
a bunny (Carl Tholin/Ilkka).

Half of the time in the level was spent running a long route to the silver key.
The silver key is visible from the starting point, but it moves to another
position when you first approach it. Gunnar found out that the trigger which
causes the key to disappear is fairly small and can be avoided with a grenade
jump. However, on Nightmare skill one has to cross said trigger before one
gets the grenade launcher (on Easy you get the GL right at the start). So,
for a long time it seemed that the trick was not possible on Nightmare.

But then Attila and Peter found a surprising method: The damage inflicted by
a zombie gib gives you sufficient height to clear the trigger! (First use of
zombie gibs ever.) Attila avoided triggering the pens to the left and right
because opening them causes the threshold to lower so that you can gain less
height with your jump. He reached :26 and later :24 with this route, a vast
improvement.

Later Martin improved the method: He showed that one can gain enough height
even if the thresholds are lowered. This enabled him to use a different zombie
for the jump and eliminate several seconds' wait. Attila did the run for QdQwav.

We sacrifice two seconds to get the grenade launcher for e3m3, the from-scratch
record is :18.


e3m3 - The Tomb of Terror               0:34 / 0:30 / 0:24

The route in this map never changed between the three releases. The grenade
jump at the start allows us to skip half of the map. The end is tough because
many ogres and hell knights can block your way and hurt you. Nolan reached
:34 in QdQ, BurninSun got :30 with faster play and less kills. Peter finally
reached :24 with bunny-hops and even faster play.


e3m4 - Satan's Dark Delight             0:49 / 0:47 / 0:26

The original route was suggested by Anthony. It involved swimming around the
enclosure with the rocket launcher and using the lift to get out of the water.
A combination of two rocketjumps was used to cut out the moving lift sequence.
Yonatan first reached :49 with this route. In QdQr, another rocketjump was
used in the lift that leads to the super nailgun, and Yonatan improved his
time to :47.

Ilkka discovered that it's possible to get out of the water with a grenade
jump. This is a huge shortcut, but it means missing the rocket launcher and
forces us to use different tactics in the levels that follow. Markus Taipale
got :28 with this route for QdQwav. Peter made the grenade jump from a fish
and got :26. Note that the double rocketjump was replaced by a grenadejump
from an ogre and a speed-preserving bunnyhop.


e3m5 - The Wind Tunnels                 0:51 / 0:46 / 0:37

Nolan discovered the main trick in this map - the tube leading to the exit
is opened by a trigger that can be reached with a grenade+rocket combination.
Yonatan ran the map in both QdQ and QdQr. When QdQlite was made, BurninSun sug-
gested a faster and more spectacular way of doing the jump: Throw a grenade
against a hell knight and perform a rocketjump exactly when it explodes.
Stefan was the first to perform this in an Easy skill run. Later, Ilkka
replaced this trick with a double grenade jump because of the route change
in e3m4. Peter repeated the trick for QdQwav.

Normally, the wind tunnels spit you out at high velocity. In speed-runs
it is desirable to stop directly after you leave the tunnel's mouth. Nolan
showed that this was possible with the third tunnel, and Evan was the first
to do this with the second tunnel, too, but the exact circumstances of these
tricks are somewhat mysterious; some players simply can't reproduce this move.
It seems that these tricks are easier with lower framerates, so people with
slow computers actually have an advantage on this level!


e3m6 - The Chambers of Torment          0:33 / 0:31 / 0:27

The basic route was the same in all three projects. The ring of shadows
helps avoid most monsters, Yonatan thought of using it first. Anthony
pointed out the shortcut jump at the start. Matthias ran the level in QdQ.
Nolan and Fredrik suggested two additional rocketjumps (up the lift and
near the start) which each saved one second (0:31 run by Yonatan).

Bunny-hopping was the key to further improvements, but rocketjumps were no
longer possible after the new route on e3m4. Markus made a grenadejump from
a vore to gain speed before Attila proposed the current earlier boost which
lets us preserve high speed up to the silver key. Markus added the last
grenade jump from the lift to get :27.

The slope jump into the exit appears to have been used by Justin first,
although later players managed to take it much higher.


e4m1 - The Sewage System                0:48 / 0:34 / 0:18

This level has seen many route changes. The first route involved no short-
cuts and looked like this: dive at the start, ride up a lift, collect the
gold key, use it at the door, run all the way to the button that opens the
flood gates and proceed to the exit.

Matthias ran the map in :52 first and then :48. Early on, Anthony pointed
out that the explosive barrel in front of the gold key door was potentially
useful for a shortcut, but at first it seemed impossible to survive the blast.

Then Yonatan discovered a shortcut. Right next to the barrel is a slope.
Running up a slope and jumping gives you more height than a normal jump.
Doing this, plus shooting the barrel from a distance so that you just
survive the explosion, will get you to the balcony with the gold key.
Yonatan initially managed :40 this way, and route tweaks from Berj and
Stefan enabled him to get :34.

Already then we thought that the barrel could be used in a different way:
to use it to get to the catwalk on the far end of the hall, near the button,
skipping the gold key altogether. But this catwalk is farther away than the
balcony, so you need to take more damage to get there. On Easy skill, this
is easily possible as there's an extra armor right next to the barrel (first
run by DooMfienD in :29). But on Nightmare, without the armor, it seemed
impossible to repeat this trick. It was Ilkka who solved the dilemma: Again
jumping from the slope, he compensated for the smaller push from the barrel
with extra speed from a bunny-jump. This improved the time to :25.

In November 1998, SDA held a speed-run contest on e4m1. The task was to run
e4m1 on Easy skill without barrel-jumping; the intention was that people
should run the "natural" route. However, Peter and Ilkka couldn't be bothered,
and they both invented a new, even better trick: A difficult, twisty jump
down the tube directly onto the platform with the flood gate button (Peter
won the contest). Markus repeated the feat on Nightmare skill (:18).


e4m2 - The Tower of Despair             0:49 / 0:46 / 0:31

The basic route was first run by Nolan, and Yonatan made the :49 demo for QdQ.
This was improved to :46 without route changes in QdQr. Ilkka pushed the time
to :42 with bunny-hopping.

Normally, you need the silver key to lower a barrier at the exit, and until
then all the runners had to take it. But Ilkka found a way to avoid this;
a curly jump after the final teleporter to get on top of an archway, and a
hard bunny-jump to get over the barrier (:37). Peter suggested the use of a
vore-ball to get into the tunnel behind the red decoration which Markus
performed to get a time of :33. Later on, Markus found that using an ogre
grenade jump instead of a vore ball worked faster (the vore ball travels
too slowly to keep up with mad bunny-hopping skills :)


e4m3 - The Elder God Shrine             1:21 / 0:55 / 0:40

The first route was run by Yonatan and was very long; it involved going
through the graveyard and lots of other things. After the release of QdQ,
several people found out independently that a large part of the run could
be cut with the slope jump in the starting room (Yonatan, 0:57). The basic
route (which is still used today) then looked like this: Do the slope jump,
get the silver key, run back to start room, jump to the other side, get gold
key, exit.

Back in the start room, Yonatan used a grenade jump to get from balcony to
balcony. DooMfienD used an in-flight grenade jump from the back of a fiend
instead. He also added a grenade jump at the silver key and got :55 for QdQr.
Markus later replaced this with a bunny jump.

Evan made :54 by adding a grenade jump from the knights near the gold key, a
trick first performed by Jan on Easy, and an additional boost in a long hallway.
These additional boosts became possible because we used health more efficiently
(pick up second megahealth when we come back, thought of by Ville). Ilkka added
bunnies to get :50.

The grenade jump at the silver key saw a few variations; it was replaced by
a double grenade jump (BurninSun/Ilkka) or a quad boost (also Ilkka). In the
end we went back to DooMfienD's method because the health is needed for two
other tricks: Markus added a fiend boost after the start, and he replaced the
boost at the other key with a quad jump that carries the player at full speed
nearly all the way to the exit! Combining all the latest tricks, Markus got
:40 for QdQwav.


e4m4 - The Palace of Hate               0:33 / 0:27 / 0:22

Anthony invented the basic route which is still used today even though the
details changed; the main idea is to get the silver key and go through the
teleporter that takes you conveniently to the exit. Said teleporter is a
curiosity; it appears to be reachable by grenade jumping only and gives rise
to the thought that id knew about grenade/rocket jumping when designing the
game, even though all other maps suggest the contrary.

Matthias ran the level in QdQ with a triple grenade jump sequence: first from
the shambler area to the super nailgun, then from there to the key and finally
through the teleporter (:33). He exploited the fact that the SNG can be taken
without raising the wall behind it (which conceals fiends lying in wait). He
also took the SSG since we then believed it to be needed for the other maps.

For QdQr, Matthias first improved the time to :32. Stefan raised the wall and
made the second grenade jump from a fiend, getting :31. Yonatan accelerated the
first jump by bouncing the grenade against the wall (:30).

At the same time, Yonatan pulled off another trick which eliminated the second
jump, the grenade jump from the shambler area directly to the key area, hugging
the corner (:29). This was probably the first speedrun trick that made such
extreme use of air control. Since this route skipped the SNG (which was at that
time used in e4m7), this spectacular route could not be used at first. Only
after e4m7 was run faster without SNG, it became possible to use the idea.
Simon improved the time to :28 and later added the grenade jump from the first
fiend to get :27 (idea by Yonatan).

Further improvements were mainly achieved through bunny-hopping by Justin,
Ilkka, and later Markus. It was also Markus who added the grenade jump from
the second fiend (:22).


e4m5 - Hell's Atrium                    0:16 / 0:12 / 0:08

This level with its short and conceptionally easy route demonstrates very
well the progress that Quake speed-running made. The level was first run
by Matthias from scratch in a :16 demo. Here, Matthias used the small pillars
in front of the exit as stepping stones to get over the lava (this trick is
actually intended by the level designer to reach the secret level). Nolan
repeated the run in the same time for QdQ. We thought the map was optimised.

Then Nolan invented something new. He exploded a grenade off the fiend to get
over the lava (:15). This trick is one of the historically most important:
Grenade jumps from monsters were unthought of until then, and this trick gave 
rise to many improvements in other maps.

Matthias made the jump quadded and got :14. DooMfienD added the spawn-assisted
grenade jump to reach :13, another novel trick. Matthias again improved this
to :12. Health and armor considerations led us to use Simon's :12 instead where
he left out the quad and added the jump from the zombie.

After QdQr, Alexander improved the time to :11 with bunnies. Once the principles
of bunny-hopping were fully understood, Markus used speed-preserving bunnies to
reach :08, exactly half the time we once thought optimal.


e4m6 - The Pain Maze                    0:26 / 0:24 / 0:22

Anthony and Matthias discovered the main trick here, the grenade jump after the
first water tunnel. Yonatan got :27 before Matthias improved the time to :26.
For QdQr Yonatan made the jump quadded and improved the time to :24. Until then
the grenade jumps were performed by throwing the grenade onto the "island" and
jumping into the opening that leads to the exit.

Ilkka invented the quad grenade jump directly out of the water. Ingmar used
this to get :23, Justin got :22. Then Peter proposed a new strategy for e4m6
and e4m7: Get the rocket launcher in e4m6 and win additional time with rocket
jumps in e4m7. The quad jump was now directed to the rocket launcher. To com-
pensate for the extra time this takes, Ilkka invented a quadded rocket jump
after the second water tunnel.

Ingmar first ran this route on Nightmare in :25, Markus improved it in several
steps. He took another diversion to the red armor and later managed to get the
megahealth, too, which gets us into a better position for e4m7. The final time
was :22.


e4m7 - Azure Agony                      1:03 / 0:59 / 0:40

The basic route contains no shortcuts and remained the same throughout its
history, but we still managed to accelerate it a bit... Nolan ran it first,
Yonatan did the level for QdQ (1:03).

In QdQr, Yonatan first improved the time to :59 by skipping the second button
near the start and using a grenade jump. Until then he had used quadded super
nails to kill the vores in the end quickly. When the new route in e4m4 meant
that we wouldn't have this weapon, the map had to be re-run, but it proved
difficult to match the time without it.

Nolan proposed quad grenades to kill the vores. DooMfienD and Nolan himself
implemented this, but got slower times. Yonatan finally managed to repeat the
:59 without SNG, adding two grenade jumps along the way.

Using bunnies and adding several grenade jumps, Alex, Justin and Markus managed
to get the time as low as :49. After the route change in e4m6 which gave us the
rocket launcher, the time could be improved significantly; rocket jumps can be
performed anywhere, so we could use more of them and in better places. Alex got
:45, and Markus optimised the running until he got :40.


end - Shub Niggurath's Pit              0:36 / 0:34 / 0:33

The final level is very simple to run and to survive; one has to wait for the
spike ball to enter Shub to finish. Yonatan first ran the level in :36. Stefan
realised that it only mattered to get to the first teleport as fast as possible,
so he skipped the lightning gun and got :35. Yonatan improved this to :34 with
a better technique of getting out of the water, and Attila finally got :33.


Other resources
---------------

If you want even more information about all these things, check out the
following URLs:

Quake done Quick's website where you can download QdQwav, its predecessors
and many other demos:                     <http://www.planetquake.com/qdq>

The list of improvements that have been made to QdQ projects after their
release:                <http://www.planetquake.com/qdq/improvements.html>

The Speed Demos Archive, the always busy center of competitive speed-running
in Quake:                                 <http://www.planetquake.com/sda>

The history file which lists all the demos ever submitted to SDA and its
predecessor sites:        <http://www7.in.tum.de/~schwoon/sda/history.txt>

Enjoy Quake done Quick with a Vengeance!
